Episodes

After 49 episodes of telling personal stories related to pop culture, Joe and Jason decide to give up like a couple of quitters. How has recording so many hours of themselves talking about themselves affected their very selves? All shall be revealed!

Zombies, natural disasters, comic book supervillians, climate change, asteroids, nuclear holocaust, the robot uprising, the rapture, a world of water, and Y2K have all threatened the survival of humanity time and time again in our stories. Joe and Jason discuss whether the apocalypse and whatever happens post that should be serious or fun and goofy. Then a stunning secret about the future survival of this very podcast is revealed!

Twin Peaks returned, and Joe and Jason pretty much couldn’t stop talking about it, so here is more of that. Puzzle boxes! Numbers! Mysteries! A fandom in denial! And although it should go without saying, spoilers!

How does one benefit from spending time in foreign lands? Should nature be protected? Is it wrong to take comfort in the familiarity of chain restaurants and convenience stores? Perhaps all we want is community and comfort food. Joe recounts exciting adventures in foreign lands and also Atlantic City while Jason mostly just asks clarifying questions.

Raised by Pop Culture examine the dream that we all live inside of, a vision of nuclear families with a single income that is higher than that of the other 99% of the population. Pop culture’s portrayal of families and success is put under the microscope that is Jason and Joe’s slightly focused rambling, and we discover there is blood on many hands: Disney’s bloodlust for parents, Todd MacFarlane’s short-lived comic celebrity, and depiction of organized crime in the best-regarded films and...

Which came first, the feeling of alienation or the tendency to gravitate towards pop culture that increases feelings of alienation? The question is asked by our Raised by Pop Culture team, and then asked probably a couple more times. Then another question is asked at some point. That one being: would Joe and Jason’s lives be easier if they followed professional sports rather than niche cult pop culture consumed in isolation? And the answer to that question is yes.

Having spent most of their formative years forming incorrect perceptions of society based on broadcast television’s representation of it, our heroes reflect on how a medium once considered dangerous has transformed into being heralded as high art as it disappears before our eyes. Was there value in watching commercial breaks? Was Perfect Strangers culturally insensitive? Does anyone remember Life Goes On?

In a stunning epiphany, our heroes determine that politics are a topic of discussion that can incite an emotional response in these modern times. Jason and Joe determine that they dislike discussing politics and then spend a significant amount of time doing so. In the process, Jimmy Stewart filibusters, Michael Moore tells the part of the story that best argues his point, and it proves to be difficult to remember who was running for president at any given time. Some offensive things are...

Nice guys have been said to finish last, but Hollywood is pretty sure that they’re what every woman actually wants. And they’re also pretty sure that women don’t actually know what is good for them anyway. Jason and Joe blame the media for all of their problems once again as they discuss the many embarrassing and creepy ways they attempted to express romantic feelings, or at least how they attempted to keep them hidden until a climactic grand gesture in act three.

Roger Ebert may have questioned whether video games can be art, but Raised by Pop Culture raise the stakes by questioning whether any mass produced entertainment media can be considered art. And then they suggest that artists are just dangerous narcissists and the concept of self-expression as a human right may be flawed. So what do you say to that, Ebert? The ball is in your court.

In our bright future where nerd culture is now mainstream, our heroes are free to discuss the most shameful of all nerd genres, science fiction. Foggy memories of the Challenger disaster and ‘90s Star Trek are shared, and philosophic discussions are blended into the narrative in a more seamless way than in Waking Life.

After creating a time travel paradox by repeatedly asking Jason to confess the worst thing he’s ever done, the Raised by Pop Culture team attempt to right all the wrongs of the past and create a perfect future. At the end of an endless time loop, it is decided that moving forward is better than dwelling on what has come before. Having learned a valuable lesson, our heroes are free to move on to the next discussion of the past.

At long last, the thrilling conclusion to our heroes’ trilogy on the music that meant something to them. In a startling development, the turn of the century heralds the era when all music is available and music knowledge becomes meaningless. Joe dabbles in online music criticism and Jason dabbles in trying to download every Motown single ever released. Things end on an ambiguous note in order to leave room for a franchise reboot in the near future.

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films went a long way in bringing swords and sorcery to the mainstream, but your Raised by Pop Culture team grew up in a time when fantasy novels and role-playing video games were contained entirely within the boundaries of the outsider culture known as “nerd.” Joe recalls reading The Odyssey for fun, and Jason recounts hiding in the library with derivative Terry Brooks novels instead of approaching strangers to ask for a seat in the lunchroom. He also...

Once the face of Marvel Comics, Spider-Man has become a character the company seems to promote less as a third film franchise is launched. This week our fearless heroes discuss Spider-Man in the ‘90s, a time of reviled comics storylines, heavily serialized cartoons, and CD-ROM animation software. If Joe and Jason learned anything, it’s that a marriage can be difficult to keep interesting in the long-term, and it may be advisable to form an escape plan involving clones or time travel...

For years, we thought we had been playing with power, but then something even greater was available to be played with: super power! Raised by Pop Culture discuss the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on the occasion of the SNES Classic being a new thing that we will want and not be able to have.

As teenagers, an epiphany is reached: perhaps education is something we don’t need no of? And furthermore, thought control isn’t to be sought after either! Hypocrisy is all around us, and the rules have been written by the man! The only way to lash out is to somehow find a way to destroy all of humanity, or barring that, at least let loose with some dark sarcasm in the classroom. Oh, but I think that was also not something we wanted?

Our heroes set their sights on one of the largest and most influencial media companies of our times, and opinions shall surely be shared regarding that subject! Did white clamshell VHS cases create the home video market as we know it today? Was the Disney Renaissance something that Raised by Pop Culture experienced firsthand? Have many popular franchises and companies been purchased by Disney? Probably!

Many news stories have been told of the great vinyl resurgence, the second coming of the bygone media format. Some may say, though, that vinyl never really went away. Those people aren’t really being truthful, because it pretty much did. Half of the Raised by Pop Culture team have spent half of their life purchasing the stuff, so here is some discussion of why that is.

Fun fact: your Raised by Pop Culture duo live in the epicenter of American shopping malls, surrounded by the national landmark Mall of America, the first-ever indoor center, and the location for Kevin Smith’s Mallrats! Tales will be told of their favorite stores before they became a dying breed, but look out! There’s also talk about libraries, K-Mart, and almost being arrested near Six Flags Great America!

Duration:00:58:28

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